Lake Bassett

Just when I thought I was going to have to give up blogging because nothing dramatic, eventful, or humorous was happening in my life...

Last night Blaine and I were sitting up in our loft. I was sprawled on the couch cuddled up with a good book (a giant book that I will never get through unless I start spending more time cuddled up on the couch with it), Blaine was sitting at the computer working on something. I was starting to feel like I wanted to discuss what I was reading with Blaine. So I broke the silence and Blaine and I proceeded to have an awesome, long overdue, discussion about something I have started to feel strongly about [sorry to be vague on the details but I have learned that when I tell people I feel strongly about this particular thing they start thinking I am insane, weird, etc...]. So I was getting deep into my heart, expressing concerns, Blaine was interested and had some good council. The children were sleeping. The doors were locked, the dogs tucked away in their closet [our downstairs bathroom]. The hum of the washing machine was in the background. It was a great pleasant evening and we finally had some time to really talk about this current issue in my life.

In the back of my mind I thought, "that's weird that the washer is humming, I didn't start it. What a sweet, kind, service-oriented husband I have to start a load of laundry at 9:30PM on a Saturday night, I didn't even ask him to!" Ten minutes later we were getting into the heart of my concerns, tears were welling in my eyes as I finally felt someone in the world understood how I felt. Blaine launched into an awesome seven minute soliloquy about his thoughts on the subject, then all of the sudden he said, "hey, what is that noise??"

It was then that I noticed that what I had earlier thought was the "hum of the washer" was now sounding more like the ferocious blast of old faithful coming from the basement. We flew down the stairs in a flash {deep conversation immediately halted}, to find...Lake Bassett. There was a good inch of water all over our tile in our kitchen, hallway, and. . . .cue the dogs. . . the source...the bathroom. Those nimrods had chewed a hole in the pipe that supplies fresh water to the toilet. I turned in to Jimmy Stewart in "It's a Wonderful Life" and launched in to my "What do we have to have all these kids [dogs] for anyway!" speech [after all it was Blaine who said we could get both and I felt the need to emphasize that if we only had one dog this probably wouldn't have happened. . .before he could mention that if we didn't have ANY dogs this most certainly would not have happened].

Well my sweet husband and I got straight to work, using every towel available in our house to sop up the flood. Our hands are wrung dry. The idiot dogs even tried to do their part by lapping up some of the water. Half our and thirteen towels later we had a clean kitchen floor. I had meant to mop yesterday anyway. No real harm done, except if you come visit us now you just have to go upstairs to use the bathroom because there is no water supply downstairs. Dang dogs.

I was really impressed though because as much as the record of "stupid dogs. Stupid dogs. Stupid dogs" looped over and over in my mind; we actually had a really fun time cleaning up the mess together. I analyzed it later and realized that if it had been Blaine's fault or my fault that the entire downstairs was flooded we would have cleaned it up in silence and the tension would be thick. As it was, it was no one's fault [except the idiot dogs] and no one to blame, so we worked together and laughed and talked and joked. And we will always remember Lake Bassett. I am going to try harder to give Blaine the same courtesy I give the dogs from now on and just be happy to be together, even if we are in the middle of fixing a mess he or I created.

Another lesson to be learned from this... if it seems out of the ordinary that someone besides yourself would start a load of laundry late Saturday night, even though you thought all the laundry had been done the day before, by all means, please go and investigate the situation right away. Trust me, you'll be happy you did!